A train runs on a straight line; history rarely does. In the novels Schokoladenblut by Radka Denemarková and Das Taiwan-Tagebuch by Yang Shuang-zi, the train becomes a vehicle for something larger – a machine that drags the past into the present, and a confined space where the polite surfaces of colonial and patriarchal power begin to crack. Both authors center their novels on women who refuse to be mere passengers in stories written by others: figures shaped by real historical women, or a pair of travelers whose bond exposes the blind spots of empire. Bringing Denemarková and Yang Shuang-zi into conversation raises the same question from two very different corners of the world – who gets to narrate history, and at what cost to those it runs over.
